Table for Two

by Nia Forrester

  I smile, thinking of Little Rocket. “Yeah, I know. How old?”

  “Two.” She is looking at me closely, like she’s gauging my reaction. “Motherhood is many things, but it’s not sexy.”

  I smile again. She’s still sexy, but I don’t tell her that, because I’m not trying to start any fires I can’t put out.

  “Same can be said of fatherhood,” I shrug.

  “I don’t know about that, Rocket. From where I sit …” She lets her voice trail off, and takes a sip of her drink, looking at me out of the corner of her eye.

  “Tell me what you’ve been up to,” I say. I rest my now empty glass on the steps between my legs.

  Figueroa. I remember her last name now. Rayna Figueroa.

  “Well,” she lets the word drag out a little. “Besides looking after Liliana—that’s her name—I’ve been trying to finish up my licensure. You remember I was studying for my CPA license?”

  I nod, though I don’t remember a lick about her being in school. Of course, back then, I wouldn’t have been interested even if she told me she was training for a mission to Mars. We didn’t have that kind of relationship, if you could even call it that.

  “And …?”

  “It’s coming along,” she says, shifting a little in a way that tells me it isn’t coming along quite as well as she might like. “But it’s tough with a kid and everything. Time. I used to have so much of it, it feels like. And now, not so much.”

  “Yeah. Single parenthood …”

  I’m struggling to think of how to keep the conversation going, I can’t lie. I don’t remember what Rayna and I used to talk about then, and I’m having a tough time thinking about something to talk about now. She looks good, she smells amazing, but I want out of there and I’ve only been sitting with her for about twenty minutes.

  I sit forward, preparing to stand and make some excuses before giving the valet the ticket for my car. Rayna sees that this is what I’m about to do, and rests her hand on my arm.

  “Rand,” she says.

  Her calling me by my given name takes me aback. Outside of family, and Dani who sometimes feels closer than family, no one calls me that, so I go very still and look at Rayna again.

  “I was sorry when I heard,” she says. “And I didn’t think … I heard about the memorial, but I didn’t think …”

  “It was a small service,” I say quickly. “Very private. Word-of-mouth only. I wouldn’t have expected …” Nor would I have wanted her there.

  “I know. Of course. But I just want you to know that I was thinking of you around that time. And of course, by then I was almost …”

  I narrow my eyes. “Almost …”

  “I was just about to deliver. Hadn’t seen you in a while at that point, remember?”

  “Really?” I can’t remember much about that time. And the intervals when I saw Rayna were so sporadic, that I had no clue when the last time was that we saw each other, except that it was some vague period of time “before Faith died.”

  “Yeah.” She is looking me in the eyes now, like she’s trying to decide whether I really can’t remember, or am just being an ass. “Really.”

  I shrug. “Well, those were crazy days.”

  “Yes,” she says, wryly. “They were.”

  This time I do stand, and look at her, still sitting there on the steps. “Good seeing you again, Rayna,” I say. “It was cool to catch up.”

  I know my departure probably feels abrupt, but she’s a relic from a former life, and talking to her feels like just pretending you remember someone who clearly remembers you; and then tripping your way through a conversation, hoping for some hint of a shared interest.

  I remember her. But I just don’t remember ever having felt like I knew her. Except biblically. So what could there possibly be to talk about?

  I am a few steps away, and digging into my jacket to look at my phone again. Still nothing from Dani. If she isn’t on the way to the airport by now, then it’s probably a wrap. She might not make it tonight at all.

  The disappointment cuts through me. It’s been a week since I saw her last, and I am not in a good way.

  “Rocket.” Rayna calls after me one last time and I turn to look over my shoulder at her. She stands and comes down the steps to meet me. “Lemme see your phone?”

  I hesitate. The last thing I need in my phone is Rayna’s phone number. But since I’ve been such bad company, I hand it to her. She enters her information and gives it back to me.

  “Call me if you have some time while you’re in town,” she says. Then she shrugs. “Maybe you can stop by or something. And maybe meet Liliana.”

  I am walking across the hotel lobby when I collide with someone; someone about five inches taller than me who is wearing just a smear or two too much cologne.

  “Whoa. Sorry ‘bout that, man.” I steady myself and look up.

  “Hey! Rocket Reese!”

  I try not to look pained. I am so sick of hearing those three words strung together in exactly that sequence.

  “Yup. How you doin’, man?” I extend a hand to give the kid some dap.

  “It’s me,” he says, looking excited. His eyes are wide, and he has to be only about … what? Nineteen, maybe. And he looks familiar, but …

  “Corey,” the kid says. “It’s Corey Jones!”

  “Corey Jones,” I repeat.

  Corey Jones is literally a homeboy, from the same town Dani and I are from. A basketball star who entered the NBA at eighteen, and, well … choked. But after a little while working with Dani as his life coach, he seems to be rebounding. His last season was above average, though he still hasn’t completely delivered on the promise of his incredibly high signing bonus, and annual salary.

  He’s been all over the local papers talking about how Dani saved his career and got him re-focused, but there hasn’t been much national coverage, unless it’s about yet another game he underperformed in.

  “Yeah. Crazy that we didn’t run into each other back home, huh? But we come to LA and …”

  “Yeah. Anyway …”

  “I’m about to head over to the bar and grab a drink,” Corey says, talking over me. “Maybe some lunch. You want to …?”

  “Are you old enough to drink?” I ask him.

  “Just. Yeah. Turned twenty-one last week,” Corey says grinning.

  He has that look that a lot of NBA rookies all have. Like their bodies grew ahead of the rest of them. Lanky, ungainly, and a little bit out of proportion. His face is almost completely smooth, like he hasn’t even started to shave yet.

  “Who you here with?” I ask, like I might ask a kid lost in the mall. I glance over his shoulder.

  “Just me.” Corey looks over his shoulder, too. As if he has an entourage that might materialize, even though he didn’t know they existed.

  For some reason his being alone makes me feel like I can’t refuse his offer. And since I didn’t eat at Chris Spencer’s house, what the hell? Couldn’t hurt to have a burger and a beer with the kid. That should kill just enough time before I call Dani again.

  ~5~

  “where are you now?”

  I grimace before I respond. “In the Uber.”

  There’s a moment of silence before Rand speaks, and when he does, I can tell he is disappointed. “So, you’re gonna miss it. You’re definitely missing it. Didn’t I tell you?”

  “Yes, you did,” I say, rubbing the heel of my hand against my forehead. “But I had to make that last appointment. And it’s fine, anyway. I already called and got on another flight.”

  “What time does that one get in?”

  “A little after nine your time.”

  More silence.

  “I know what you’re thinking,” I say. “But I’ll still make it to the reception afterwards. If I come straight there from the airport.”

  Today, at seven o’clock his time, some of the LA Rams wives are hosting a community violence prevention forum, one of the efforts that the NFL is supportin
g to, in my opinion, change the conversation from police misconduct to something else entirely. But community violence prevention isn’t exactly something folks can decline to address if given the chance. So, when Rand’s ESPN bosses asked him to be the moderator, he accepted, and I told him I thought it was good that he had.

  I hear him sigh.

  “Yeah, okay. The reception should run till about ten or eleven, so you can meet me at the restaurant?”

  “Yup. And I’m there for the whole weekend, so …”

  “Yeah,” he says, still not completely mollified.

  Rand has been there for almost a week now. There are parties and receptions; invitation-only dinners with high-profile athletes and rookies that everyone is trying to get a piece of. Rand has had daily interviews with some of the most recognizable names in pro-football, and it’s a big deal for him because this past season he got a lot of notice not only as a sportscaster, but as an interviewer who takes on the tough subjects, asks the tough questions.

  For whatever reason, the athletes he interviews don’t take issue with his approach. Rand thinks it’s because he left the game in his prime, and that in their minds, he’s still one of them, and they respect him for it. I think he’s right, but I can tell he doesn’t feel like one of them. Not anymore.

  And honestly, that kind of relieves me, because even what I’ve seen online and on television about the ESPYs tells me it’s basically like the Oscars, All-Star Weekend, and Spring Break all rolled up into one. I can only imagine the atmosphere, and of course, the women who are there, angling to get close to all the pro ballers, and even the former pro ballers like Rand.

  “Or we could just meet at the hotel after. I could go straight there, and be waiting when you get back.”

  “No, come to the reception.”

  “Okay,” I say right away, since he sounds so insistent.

  “Call me when you board the new flight, okay?”

  “Yup.”

  We say a quick goodbye because he needs to go get ready for his next thing. I hang up and lean back into the seat, taking a deep breath.

  The trip to LA for an entire weekend is already a stretch for me, and I’m doing it mostly because it is important to Rand. He is taking care of the ticket and all the expenses ESPN won’t cover, so I didn’t harp on the fact that I still can’t really afford the time off. Being a life coach in a small town isn’t exactly a lucrative gig, and lately, I’ve been getting a lot of one-offs—people who need help making a single pivotal decision, and then moving on.

  At most, I make five hundred-a-pop from those. The ones that pay my bills are the chronically indecisive, chronically disorganized, or the ones that Rand calls the ‘hot-mess clients’—people who stumble through life on the cusp of complete dysfunction, but not quite bad enough to need psychiatric care.

  Like the college student I see once a week, who has a cycle of creating crises for herself by doing things like “forgetting” to pay bills, even when she has plenty of money; or leaving her purse in different places so she has to cancel credit and debit cards. All of June’s—that’s her name—worries have to do with her poor handling of money, and though I’m not a shrink, it seems pretty clear to me that she isn’t just careless, but unconsciously choreographing these mini financial disasters. I couldn’t for the life of me figure out why until I got to know her better.

  Turns out she inherited something close to a million dollars from an aunt, and her parents are wealthy as well. Though her family is conservative, she is incredibly progressive. She’s so progressive, that I think all that money makes her feel guilty, and she cooks up ways to … lose it.

  ‘It just falls from the sky,’ she said to me once, sounding almost exasperated. ‘That’s what it feels like in my family. Like the money just falls from the sky.’

  Rand heard my theory about her moneyed guilt and laughed, saying that he thought it was just crazy enough to be true. And that was when he, off the cuff, referred to her as my ‘hot-mess client’. Now, thanks to him, I can’t get the label out of my head and have started slotting some of my more eccentric people into that category.

  This week, I realized that I have far fewer of those, and lately, far more of the kind that come in for a session or two, or need a few pep-talks, and then are done. It’s completely my fault, because I haven’t been marketing myself, holding events, or doing any of the things I know I need to do to grow my practice.

  Before Rand, I went to local fairs, and did free seminars at the adult learning center in town, or for seniors the library, to drum up support. I even wrote the occasional short article for the Lifestyle section of the local paper. Now, I’ve done none of that for months.

  “Boyfriend?” my Uber driver asks.

  “Huh? Yeah, I have one,” I say absently, my mind on the long flight ahead of me.

  My driver laughs. “No, I mean, was that your boyfriend on the phone?”

  I hesitate, thinking it almost too personal a question. But I know Uber drivers sometimes make conversation just to ingratiate themselves to passengers, to pad their ratings and tips. Hey, I can dig it. I wish my business was one that made tipping appropriate, because I sure could use the extra dough.

  “Yeah,” I say. “I’m flying out to the West Coast to meet him.”

  “Ah. A long-distance relationship,” my driver says. “I have one of those myself.”

  I don’t bother to correct him. I am distracted by his English, which is heavily-accented, so I try to figure out where he is from. Morocco, I think.

  “Oh really?” I ask. “How often do you get to see her?”

  “Once every two years or so,” he says breezily.

  I lean in, unsure that I have heard correctly. “Once every …”

  “Fares are expensive,” my driver explains. “And it is not very simple to get back to my country these days. And now, if I go back, I may never be allowed to return.”

  “Oh. Where …?”

  “Libya,” he says.

  “And your girlfriend is …”

  “My wife,” he corrects me. “Yes, she is there. And my son. I was last there in 2014.”

  I want to ask him why they aren’t here with him, but whatever his answer, it is likely to be heartbreaking.

  “You must miss them very much,” I say instead.

  “Yes. But we Skype,” he says cheerfully. “Every day if we can. How far is this flight to see your boyfriend?”

  “Six hours,” I say. “Give or take about twenty minutes.”

  My driver makes a friendly scoffing sound. “You are lucky,” he says. “If six hours were all that separated us, I would see my wife and son every week!”

  I practically sink into the seat, grateful for the reminder that for all my internal whining, what I have to complain about falls decisively into the category of First World Problems.

  When I board and get settled in the cabin, I pull out my phone right away to call Rand to let him know that I’m on my way, but he doesn’t answer and I wind up leaving voicemail; and then I send a text for good measure. Just as I am powering down my phone and stashing it into my bag, someone arrives to take the vacant seat next to me.

  Without even looking up at him, I see that he is tall, and well-muscled. Once he has put away his bag in the overhead compartment and sits, the seat creaks beneath his weight.

  I can’t help it. I have to look.

  Once I do, my eyes open just a little wider.

  It is Stephen Jordan. He plays for the Eagles, a fact that I know only because I’ve been religiously watching Rand’s show on Sundays. I can’t remember whether he’s a defensive end, defensive tackle, strong safety … I have no idea.

  But I do know he’s one of the most telegenic guests Rand has ever had on his show. He smiles a lot, and gives loud belly-laughs, and playful punches in the arm. I think if he wasn’t on the field, he would make an amazing television personality himself.

  He sees my double-take and gives me one of those smiles.

&n
bsp; “How you doin’?” he asks.

  “Good,” I say. “You?”

  “No complaints, just as long as this flight is short on turbulence and gets in on time.”

  I nod. “Yeah. It’s a long haul, isn’t it? And especially for people with …” I indicate his long legs, neither of which he can extend fully, even in the roominess of the First-Class cabin.

  He grins. “Exactly. So, what’s taking you to LA?”

  I consider for a moment, and then decide there’s no reason to be cagey. If he’s going for the same reason I am, we may very well see each other again during the weekend.

  “The ESPYs,” I say. “I’m meeting my boyfriend there.”

  Stephen Jordan narrows his eyes. “Me too,” he says. “I mean, about the ESPYs. I don’t have a boyfriend. I don’t roll like that. But your boyfriend … an athlete, or …?”

  I should have anticipated this question, but didn’t. I no longer hesitate though, when people ask me if I’m attached, or who I’m attached to. Now, it rolls right off my tongue.

  Hell, it’s all I can do to keep from telling strangers at the gas pump — ‘Rand Reese is my boyfriend!’

  “Not anymore,” I say. “He’s a sportscaster now.”

  At this, Stephen Jordan turns a little in his seat and takes me in. “We haven’t met, though, have we? Because I’m not that good with …”

  “No,” I reassure him. “We haven’t met.”

  “Well, I’m Steve,” he says, extending his hand. “You can call me SJ.”

  “Danielle.”

  His grip is impressively firm. It feels a little like when Rand holds my hand, dwarfing it in his.

  “And if you don’t mind me asking, your boyfriend is …”

  “Rand Reese,” I say.

  And of course, I can’t help it—I blush a little.

  “Rocket Reese,” Stephen … SJ says nodding and grinning. “That’s my dude. You meetin’ him out there in Cali, huh?”

  I nod.

  “How ‘bout we Facetime him before we take off?” SJ says. “Let him know you’re bein’ well taken care of.”